Don't knock Central American Hockey. You get to shoot the refs for a bad call, the War Room is an actual war room, your hockey bag has a secret storage compartment, and there's no video replay because cameras are forbidden, well, everywhere.

Draft picks are a crap shoot and ROR is a known commodity. COL played it safe, and they can trade him on their own terms next year.Every draft year is projected as being great, but there's worse teams than CGY and they could wind up picking 10th overall. I'd take ROR over a 10th.

This is exactly the problem. ROR cannot be traded for a full year after he signed the offer sheet, which will pass the trading deadline next season. After the contract expires, the next qualifying offer has to be $6.5m x 110% = $7.15m. Now, you can see the problem there. I just wish the Avs match and give the Flames a big FU. They could still get something before the free agency starts in two seasons if they decide not to qualify him.

According to this SN article, ROR would have had to clear waivers before joining the Flames roster...

Because O’Reilly spent the last three years in Colorado, he’s not viewed as a free agent who is joining a NHL team from Europe midway through the season. As a result, he does not need to clear waivers before suiting up for the Avs again.

The circumstances would have been much different if Calgary’s offer sheet was accepted.

That would have created a potentially disastrous situation where the Flames had to send two decent draft picks to Colorado before losing the rights to O’Reilly immediately afterwards. Hypothetically, it could even have been the Avalanche that ended up putting in a waiver claim on the player, assuming that they dropped back below Calgary in the standings by the time he hit the wire at the end of next week.

KeyserSoze wrote:According to this SN article, ROR would have had to clear waivers before joining the Flames roster...

Because O’Reilly spent the last three years in Colorado, he’s not viewed as a free agent who is joining a NHL team from Europe midway through the season. As a result, he does not need to clear waivers before suiting up for the Avs again.

The circumstances would have been much different if Calgary’s offer sheet was accepted.

That would have created a potentially disastrous situation where the Flames had to send two decent draft picks to Colorado before losing the rights to O’Reilly immediately afterwards. Hypothetically, it could even have been the Avalanche that ended up putting in a waiver claim on the player, assuming that they dropped back below Calgary in the standings by the time he hit the wire at the end of next week.

$lacker wrote:This is so amazing... I can't wait to hear what the idiots over at Calpuke have to say about this one.

In my opinion, that is a fireable action. In any other industry an oversight like that gets you fired.

if you go over there ..bring back some timbits...err tidbits

It's been fun over there... half the board simply wouldn't believe it could happen. The best part was when a bunch of them were saying "it's not true, Sportsnet is a joke... notice TSN hasn't reported it because they know everything.... blah blah blah" And then BOOM, Bob McKenzie says its true. Great stuff.